


As the World Falls Down

by standbygo



Series: November 2014 Song Challenge [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Slash, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 16:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3454691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/standbygo/pseuds/standbygo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They stepped into the room, and John’s eye was immediately drawn to the spray painted words in red on the walls:</p><p>SHERLOCK HOLMES<br/>JOHN WATSON<br/>GOTCHA<br/>BOOM</p>
            </blockquote>





	As the World Falls Down

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not redistribute my fanfiction on other archives or sites without my express permission. Thank you.
> 
> We're baaaaaack! Another in a series of pieces, built out of a challenge/cooperation between ResidentBunburyist and myself. Each piece begins with a piece of music, then I write a piece and RB draws a picture for it, or RB draws a picture and I write a piece for it. After a bit of a hiatus, we're back to the grind!
> 
> This piece was prompted by David Bowie's "As the World Falls Down" from the Labyrinth soundtrack.

 

_As the pain sweeps through,_

_Makes no sense for you._

_Every thrill is gone._

_Wasn't too much fun at all,_

_But I'll be there for you_

_As the world falls down._

  * _David Bowie, As the World Falls Down_




 

“So why do you think this is Bates’ hideout again?”

“Simple, John. I analyzed the dust from his footprints at the last murder scene and found traces of flour, of all things. So, a bakery or pastry shop of some sort, a place that makes the goods in-house.”

“Which narrows it down to possibly two hundred or so bakeries in central London alone.”

“Exactly. But then the fingerprint left at the scene – the left middle finger – showed a scar which indicated an old industrial accident. Large machinery. Therefore it’s a large scale bakery. Which led me to this bread factory.”

John looked up at the old building, broken windows reflecting shards of the full moon. “This place hasn’t been used in years though.”

“The flour in his bootprint was old, about six years. This place was shut down in 2008. All the others in the London area are either still running or closed much earlier.”

“Brilliant.”

Sherlock’s head tipped towards John and then back up at the building, almost too quickly for John to see his small smile. “Shall we have a look?”

“Likely full of squatters.”

“I checked with my network – not really. The interior is too large to heat decently at this time of year, so they tend to stay away.”

They approached a side door and Sherlock pulled out his lockpicking kit.

“The door’s so old, I could probably kick it in,” John said.

“As much as I know you’d like to show off your machismo, John, a quieter entrance would probably be a better idea.”

“You’re no fun.”

The lock clicked under Sherlock’s hand, and he glanced up and smiled. “That’s my line.”

They entered the cavernous building, their torches creating wide swaths of light in the gloom. Hulking pieces of baking equipment were laid out in rows and nearly completely covered with graffiti and cobwebs. Together they walked up and down the aisles, sweeping the room with light.

“What are we looking for?”

“Any evidence of activity here within the last six months. Which I don’t see.”

“Me neither. What now?”

Sherlock shone his torch towards the upper level of the building, a corridor running around the perimeter of the building. “The administrative offices are up there. Let’s have a look, shall we?”

The stairs creaked ominously as they ascended. John winced with every noise. “So much for a quiet entrance.”

Sherlock said nothing, but opened the door to the upper level. It swung open easily to reveal a row of offices, with all the doors shut.

“Look, John,” Sherlock said, an edge of excitement in his voice. He strode quickly over to the third door from the end and focused his torch on the doorknob. Even in the gloom of the building, John could see the clear imprint of a hand in the dust on the knob.

“Excellent,” John grinned. “Shall we call the Met?”

“I want to see inside,” Sherlock said.

John quirked an eyebrow at him. “If we open it, we’ll obscure his handprint, destroy the evidence.”

Sherlock stepped back and held his arm out in invitation. “Don’t say I never do anything for you. Kick away.”

John laughed, stepped back and kicked the door open, meeting little resistance from the old latch.

They stepped into the room, and John’s eye was immediately drawn to the spray painted words in red on the walls:

      SHERLOCK HOLMES

      JOHN WATSON

      GOTCHA

      BOOM

Only when John read the last word did he see the mass of metal and wires in the centre of the room, and the tiny red light on its front, blinking:

      0:16

      0:15

      0:14

Sherlock grabbed him by the shoulder and propelled him out of the room. “Run, John!” he shouted.

John’s amygdala took over his brain, and he sprinted with Sherlock the way they had come. Sherlock’s longer legs got him to the door at the top of the staircase first, and he pushed it.

It didn’t move. Sherlock kicked it, and it shuddered and held.

Sherlock turned and looked at John. His face was open, shocked, frightened. John had only enough time to register that he had never seen Sherlock look like that before, when Sherlock launched himself at John. John felt Sherlock’s arms lock around him, felt the air implode, heard the sound of the world ending around them, and then he heard no more.

+

John knew he wasn’t dead because he hurt too much. Whatever vague ideas of the afterlife he had gleaned from church school as a child, he was fairly sure that one would not be in pain in heaven. Unless he had been very bad indeed; but he wasn’t in _that_ much pain, so – alive.

He coughed, feeling the plaster dust grit on his tongue and in his mouth. His face was stiff with it, and he blinked the powder from his eyes. His ears rang with tinnitus. Opening his eyes had no real effect – it was completely dark.

As he allowed his eyes to adjust to the blackness, he evaluated his body. His right arm hurt terribly. It was flung out to the side and he could feel enormous pressure on it. So, pinned under something, and likely broken. His left arm was pinned to his side and slightly underneath his body. He wiggled those fingers slightly with no adverse effect. Same with his toes.

On the whole, pretty bloody miraculous.

“Sherlock?” he called.

His voice sounded far away, with the ringing in his ears paramount. It sounded hollow and trapped, as in a small space, and not as it would outdoors. Nor did it echo around as it had in the building. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he could see beams, chunks of concrete and shards of glass all around and above him. It seemed he was in a pocket or cave, with God knows how much of the building on top of him.

“Sherlock?” he shouted.

Aside from the terrible pressure on his right arm, he could feel weight on top of him – a heavy weight, but not so much that he couldn’t breathe or was in danger of being crushed. He could see the faint outline of a huge wooden beam about half a metre above him, but it wasn’t touching him.

He lifted his head a fraction to try to see more, and his chin brushed something rough. It wasn’t wood or stone or metal, but something softer…

Like wool. Tweed.

“Sherlock? Oh Jesus, Sherlock?”

He tried to move his left arm to feel around but couldn’t at all. He forced himself to focus away from the pain in his right arm to concentrate on Sherlock’s body. He seemed to have landed on top of John, on a slight diagonal, with his head angled towards John’s left shoulder. John tried to twitch his shoulder to get a reaction, but he could only move it an inch, not enough to move Sherlock’s body.

Sherlock was utterly still.

“Sherlock, say something. Say anything. Come on, please.”

He listened, straining to hear Sherlock’s breathing, but the tinnitus was too loud for him to hear the subtle sound. He thought about trying to look for Sherlock’s pulse in his neck, but the collar of Sherlock’s coat blocked his view, and he couldn’t shift enough to move it.

“God damn it, Sherlock, your damn coat. Your damn collar. Why couldn’t you-”

John felt panic start to rise. He knew it was dangerous to allow fear to take over, but he channeled all of it into screaming, “Help! Can anyone hear me? Help us, please!”

He shouted until he felt dizzy and his throat felt torn apart. Then he whispered.

“Sherlock, please stay with me? Please. I can’t lose you, not like this, not again. Please. If you can hear me, please stay with me…”

He alternated between shouting and whispering, losing all sense of time. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious, and therefore the time, but even if he had only been out a few minutes, dawn would come in a few hours.

But as he continued to shout, his brain started to whisper cruel thoughts to him.

_Dawn will never come._

_You’re trapped down here._

_Sherlock is dead._

_If he isn’t dead yet, he will be soon.  And you can’t help him. Again._

_You’ll die of asphyxiation or starvation in time._

_They’ll never find your bodies._

_No one cares._

“It’s not true, Sherlock,” he groaned. “Please believe me. It’s not true.”

He must have slept, or his body gave him the gift of unconsciousness. He woke when light sliced across his eyes, as abrupt and painful as a knife.  He could hear a scratching sound.

“Hello?” he called, his voice ragged and sore.

He heard more scratching, and a whine. He squinted up at the thin sliver of light, only to have it blocked. He blinked, and blinked again.

“Sherlock? Do you see that too?” he murmured, because what he was seeing was the soft brown eyes and fur of an Alsatian dog.

The dog looked down at him, quirking its head to the side, as if asking a question.

“Hey boy,” John called. “Hey. Um. Hey, girl? Good dog?”

The dog looked up, allowing the light to shine in again, and began to bark.

+

The hospital room was bright, and loud with people’s voices, and it was wonderful.

The painkillers were wonderful too.

John faded in and out for a while, a long while. He distantly heard voices talking to him and about him, but none of them were familiar. He only wanted to hear one voice; the rest were irrelevant.

One day he woke, and knew that they had reduced the morphine enough for him to be aware of the world around him again. He looked to his right and saw his arm in an enormous cast, from shoulder to wrist. He looked a little further to his right and saw a nurse checking his vitals.

“Can I have some water please?” he said.

She turned to him with a pleasant smile. “Of course, Doctor Watson. Not a lot just yet, all right?”

“I know,” he said, and accepted the few sips of water. He’d never take plain water for granted again.

“Nurse, can you tell me – my friend-”

“There’s a note in your file that I’m to get you a wheelchair as soon as you asked. Can you wait ten more minutes?”

“Yes,” he said, but was thinking _no no **no** , now now **now**_.

Fifteen minutes later he was wheeled into another room. The nurse parked him next to a bed covered with white sheets and blankets, tubes and IV bags, and a tuft of black hair at one end. “I’ll leave you to compare notes,” she smiled, and left.

The door swung shut, and there was silence in the room for a long moment. Then John heard a quiet voice from the bed, “John?”

“Yeah,” John said with a long and loud exhale. “It’s me.”

“I can’t see you,” Sherlock said petulantly.  “They’ve got me in some kind of brace thing.”

“I’m in a wheelchair – not sure I can stand yet.”

“Oh. Okay.” Another brief silence. “Are you all right?”

“Compound fracture of my right arm, dehydration, some deep bruising, but not bad on the whole. You?”

“I don’t know.” John saw Sherlock’s fingers flex and gesture to the other side of the room. “The doctors were in here earlier with some x-rays but I couldn’t see.”

John gripped the left side of the wheel of his chair, and slowly made his way to the end of the bed. Sherlock’s chart hung on a hook there, and John was able to scoop it up. He scanned it with growing relief.

“No spinal or cranial damage, thank bloody God. You did break your scapula and collarbone, so that’s why you’ve got a brace on. You’ll be immobile for a while.”

“Oh God,” Sherlock groaned. “I’m so bored already.”

John laughed, and suddenly realized that his eyes were wet. “We’re God damned lucky, Sherlock. So God damned lucky.”

“John?” Sherlock said. “Your voice is all funny. Did you damage your vocal chords?”

“No, I-” John took a deep breath. “Sherlock, I’m going to tell you something that you’ll never hear me say again.”

“Oh? Should I record it?”

“I was afraid.”

John heard Sherlock swallow. “John, I – I’m sorry I led you into such a dangerous situation. You could have been killed. I had no idea-”

“No,” John said, firmly. “I was afraid that I’d lost you.”

Sherlock said nothing, but John heard the click of him swallowing again.

“I won’t lose you again. I can’t, and I won’t.”

John wheeled his way back to Sherlock’s side, inch by inch. When he got there, he reached his left arm up towards Sherlock, groped along the edge of the bed until he found his hand. He gripped it tightly.

“Okay?” he said quietly.

“Okay,” Sherlock whispered.

John still couldn’t see him, but Sherlock’s hand was warm, and held his tightly, and it was enough for now.

 

End

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow us on Tumblr:  
> ResidentBunburyist: http://residentbunburyist.tumblr.com/  
> Standbygo: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/blogstandbygo


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